George Steiner (1929–2020) American writer
Source: Real Presences (1989), III: Presences, Ch. 3 (p. 170).
I'm not Stiller (1955)
George Steiner (1929–2020) American writer
Source: Real Presences (1989), III: Presences, Ch. 3 (p. 170).
Jean Vanier (1928–2019) Canadian humanitarian
From books
Source: Jean Vanier, Community And Growth, 1979
“…possessed of more self-knowledge, which is the kind of knowledge that makes people attractive.”
Javier Marías (1951) Spanish writer
...sabe más de sí misma, que es el conocimiento que hace atractivas a las personas.
Source: Todas las Almas [All Souls] (1989), p. 68
Angus Wilson (1913–1991) british author
Malcolm Cowley (ed.) Writers at Work: The Paris Review Interviews, First Series (New York: Viking Press, [1958] 1959) p. 261.
Toni Morrison (1931–2019) American writer
Nobel Prize Lecture (1993)
Context: Tongue-suicide is not only the choice of children. It is common among the infantile heads of state and power merchants whose evacuated language leaves them with no access to what is left of their human instincts for they speak only to those who obey, or in order to force obedience. The systematic looting of language can be recognized by the tendency of its users to forgo its nuanced, complex, mid-wifery properties for menace and subjugation. Oppressive language does more than represent violence; it is violence; does more than represent the limits of knowledge; it limits knowledge. Whether it is obscuring state language or the faux-language of mindless media; whether it is the proud but calcified language of the academy or the commodity driven language of science; whether it is the malign language of law-without-ethics, or language designed for the estrangement of minorities, hiding its racist plunder in its literary cheek — it must be rejected, altered and exposed. It is the language that drinks blood, laps vulnerabilities, tucks its fascist boots under crinolines of respectability and patriotism as it moves relentlessly toward the bottom line and the bottomed-out mind. Sexist language, racist language, theistic language — all are typical of the policing languages of mastery, and cannot, do not permit new knowledge or encourage the mutual exchange of ideas.
“Life more often teaches us how to perfect our weaknesses than how to develop our strengths.”
Elizabeth Bibesco (1897–1945) writer, actress; Romanian princess
Haven (1951)
Louis L'Amour (1908–1988) Novelist, short story writer
Source: Education of a Wandering Man (1989), Ch. 11
Sun Myung Moon (1920–2012) Korean religious leader
The Way of God's Will Chapter 3-2 Life of Faith http://www.unification.org/ucbooks/WofGW/wogw3-02.htm Translated 1980.